Dole
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Posts posted by Dole
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Did they say what pieces would be performed?
No. The article simply identified Williams as the composer of Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Schindler's List. Williams conducted the NSO in January so maybe they'll so a piece or two that he performed with them.
Dole
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I have a couple of questions about John Williams and Bernard Herrmann I was hoping maybe someone could answer. Herrmann died near Christmas of 1975, the day after finishing his recording of the score to Taxi Driver. Williams composed the score for Hitchcock's final film Family Plot, released in April of the following year. My questions are:
1. Had Williams signed on to do Family Plot before Herrmann's death? If so, do we know what Herrmann thought of his protege working with the director who had fired him a decade before? If not, what do you think Herrmann might have thought of the Williams/Hitchcock collaboration?
2. Did Herrmann ever comment on Williams's score for Jaws?
Thanks for any help or insights.
Dole- who wishes Herrmann could have lived a couple years longer to hear Williams score Star Wars and Close Encounters.
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Just read in my local paper that Erich Kunzel and the National Symphony Orchestra will be doing a tribute to the music of John Williams as part of the Pops Goes the Fourth Independence Day celebration in Washington D.C. The 90 minute concert will be broadcast on PBS on Friday July 4.
Dole
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I just thought that I'd mention that actor Gregory Peck died today at 87. He was one of my favorite actors who starred in many notable films including To Kill a Mockingbird, How the West Was Won, Roman Holiday, The Omen, and Moby Dick. It's sad to see Hollywood lose yet another of its few remaining stars from its Golden Age. Mr. Peck will be missed.
Dole
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Thanks to everyone for the quick answers.
Dole
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For those who were debating Williams' use of orchestrators, there is part of an excellent interview with orchestrator Conrad Pope (SW I and II, Harry Potter, ect.) up at FilmScoreMonthly.com. Check the daily articles for March 19. The rather long section about Williams is near the bottom. More about Williams may be in the magazine as only part of the interview is online.
Dole
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I know this isn't Williams-related but I was wondering if anyone could help with the following questions.
1. Why didn't Danny Elfman compose the score for Ed Wood (1994)? I thought that he and Burton were like Spielberg and Williams.
2. Is Maurice Jarre still alive? If so, does he still compose film music? If not, when did he pass away?
3. How many Hitchcock films did Bernard Herrmann score and what was the film that led to the end of their collaboration?
Any help with this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Dole
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Newsweek this week had an Oscar section which gave JW another backhanded compliment. It basically highlighted him as being the most nominated person alive and then went on to say that many critics believe his recent output isn't very good and that he is only nominated because he's the guy who composed Star Wars. But there is a very nice picture of Williams and it's nice to see him get some of the spotlight in a major magazine with his forty-two nominations, what with all the noise people are making about Meryl Streep's whopping 13 or Jack Nicholson's 12 or how ever many he has. John Williams probably can't even remember back that far to when he had 12 nominations.
Anybody know who the music director is this year? Are we back to Tom Conti again? (As Julia Roberts called him a couple of years ago!)Yes, it's Bill Conti again this year. You can see the press release from a couple of months ago at the Oscar website. Look at the bright side though, Tom Conti is a heck of a lot better than "stickman" which is what Roberts called him the year before.
Dole
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Until AOTC arrived last spring, TESB was my biggest dust collector in the Star Wars saga.
Are you serious? I guess everyone has different tastes. I find that out of all the SW soundtracks, ESB and AOTC have the most listenable tracks. Many of the tracks on ROTJ and TPM (Luke Confronts Jabba, Watto's Deal, etc.) may work well in the film but are somewhat boring as listening experiences. Dole
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I just read on the FSM board that the new issue of Film Score Monthly features an interview with Williams. Does anyone have any more information on this?
Dole
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Sure, but I'll have to wait until tomorrow as I'm away from my CD right now. It's the part that sounds so different from the rest of the track. It comes right before the final fading out rendition of the main theme. I think it's right around the the 2:00 minute or 2:30 mark but I'll check tomorrow.
Dole
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I'm not sure if this has been discussed before, but the jazzy downward spiraling section of the Catch Me If You Can Main Title cue sounds a lot (to me) like Part B of the Love Theme (Across the Stars) from Attack of the Clones. Does anyone who is musically gifted see a similarity? To me it almost sounds like a note-for-note copy (but then I'm not musically gifted!). Thanks.
Dole
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Haydan Christiansen could not act Shakespeare!
I disagree. I saw Christensen in Life as a House and he was quite good. He received a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild nomination for Best Supporting Actor last year for that role. And while everyone on this board probably has two or three Golden Globe nominations for something, the SAG awards are decided by fellow actors and actresses. I'd think that it's considered a tremendous honor for your peers to recognize your talents, especially in a field where everyone is almost egotistical and self-absorbed enough to nominate themselves whether they were in a movie that year or not. I think Christensen and McGregor were just hampered by the dialogue. Portman on the other hand has never been good in anything I've ever seen her in. Just my two cents.
Dole
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I'm just happy George Lucas and Natalie Portman received nominations. The fact that a 4 time (?) Academy Award nominee with an endless amount of resources can't write or direct decently is upsetting. And Natalie is beautiful but her acting is like something straight out of a junior high school production of Hamlet. But I agree that AOTC shouldn't be listed as one of the 5 worst films of the year. There were several others that were far worse.
Dole
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I think the ninth is Fluffy's Harp, however I think there's also a piece centering on Voldemort. Not sure if Leaving Hogwarts is part of the concert suite.
Dole
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Lucas did not yelled him, he said they could not aford it.
You're right. I apologize. I misinterpreted one of JW's answers in the STARFIX interview. And I'm not blaming Lucas if he's a frugal filmmaker. I imagine that's why he's raked in gobs of money. I guess I just find it interesting that a man worth 3 billion plus gets nervous about spending an extra million or two here and there on his films. Jay Leno says he hasn't touched any of the money he's made off of the Tonight Show in the past decade because deep down he's afraid that he might get fired in the future or something. Maybe Lucas is likewise insecure having come into so much money so quickly after scraping the bottom of the barrel for American Graffiti and Star Wars.
Dole
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Watch the AOTC DVD features to see just how much of a penny pusher Lucas is. For example, his FX team wanted to go to different places in the Southwest U.S. to shoot backgrounds for Geonosis, but Lucas wanted it to be done in a less expensive way, so they just used still photographs and video shot from airplanes flying over the southwest instead.
Also if he were that penny pusher, we wouldn't have the LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA playing it.Actually, Lucas yelled at Williams back in 1976/77 when he first suggested using the LSO because Lucas was running short on cash. Williams knew the manager of the LSO and got a cheap deal and that's why they used it. I think they continue to use the LSO out of a sense of tradition. In the CNN interview Williams did last May he said that the LSO was as much a part of Star Wars as anything else. I think if Lucas thought that Williams would go for a cheaper orchestra and abandon the LSO, he'd be just as happy to record the score with a local high school marching band.
Personally, I think Williams used the same recording from TPM for the main titles because he was pressed for time. As soon as the recording sessions were over he had to jump on a plane to conduct at the Olympics and we already know from interviews that he was working on parts of the score (the end credits, etc.) at the last minute. Plus, I agree that he probably didn't care that much since so much of the rest of the film was going to be tracked with old music.
Dole
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When I was 5 or 6, my uncle made me a copy of the Star Wars soundtrack because I was a Star Wars fanatic (I used to sleep with the R2-D2 action figure). Years later, my grandma bought me "By Request, the Best of JW and the Boston Pops" for Christmas. I just wanted the Imperial March and Yoda's theme music really, but the more I listened to the other selections, the more I grew to truly love them (Superman, 1941, E.T. etc.) More importantly, I found myself really enjoying his concert works on the tape such as The Liberty Fanfare. In 1997, I bought The Empire Strikes Back SE and it hasn't stopped since. Williams is truly the greatest composer of the last quarter century.
Dole
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I'm worried about what the music for Terminal will be like. I was excited to hear about Catch Me If You Can because I always (for some reason) assumed it would be a fun jazzy score. Terminal doesn't excite me. A romantic comedy about airplanes...sounds like an earlier Spielberg film. I watched Always for the first time last week and I wasn't even aware of the music. It did nothing for me (which is rare in a Spielberg movie). I just don't particularly enjoy Williams's romantic comedy scores (i.e. Sabrina) so I'm not looking forward to this right now.
Dole
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To me, the Patriot is a beautiful score but that is because it resembles so many other beautiful scores (Amistad, Born on the Fourth of July, The Unfinished Journey, etc.) I think much of it is recycled (sort of a Horner-esque move). The love theme is gorgeous though. It ranks, in my book, as one of his best love themes.
Dole
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I thought that Spielberg said something to the effect of "George Lucas is my best friend. Of course I'll be doing Indy 4 with him." Lucas, if I'm not mistaken has been on-set for all of the three Indy movies. If number 4 shoots this summer, George's involvement in the actual production will be almost nonexistent since he'll be doing SW III at the same time. Actually I hope this is true. A 2004 release date is great, especially if Williams isn't doing Harry Potter 3. Plus, it means that either Lucas won't be so hands-on with Indy 4 or that he'll let someone else direct SW III so he can be more involved with Indy. Either way, he can only screw up one film.
Dole
P.S. Please don't flame me about the Lucas thing. I have a lot of respect for the man as a master storyteller and visionary and I know he came up with the story for Indy 4. I just think that he tinkers too much as a dirtector and editor, etc. I just worry that Indy 4 will be a lot like the SW prequels.
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Stone is also developing a movie about the longest-held American POW in the Vietnam War which I have mixed feelings about Williams doing. It might be too much of a rehash of Born on the Fourth of July. I hope Williams scores one of the three Alexander the Great movies scheduled for release in the next 2 years.
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Here are mine:
1. The Empire Strikes Back
2. Hook
3. Star Wars
4. Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom
5. Return of the Jedi
6. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
7. Raiders of the Lost Ark
8. Jaws
9. E.T.
10. A.I.
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the problem is either with the unfinished journey or amazing stories.
I agree that he maybe counts those, but both of those came before A.I. which Spielberg stated was their 17th collaboration. According to Spielberg's math, something would have had to have come between A.I. and Minority Report/Catch Me to make Catch Me If You Can their 20th collaboration together.
Dole- who realizes he's pounding this meaningless thing into the ground
Herrmann and Williams Questions
in General Discussion
Posted
Thanks scissorhands. Actually, it was seeing your avatar and banner that reminded me that I had been thinking about those questions for a long time. I had hoped you might know something seeing as you're a fan of Family Plot. Is it a good score? I've only ever heard the End Title.
Dole